(Page 40 has a graph of violent crime victims by gender over a course of two decades), but it's currently about a decade out of date. It does show men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women (though crime rates ARE dropping for everyone, huzzah). But, it *is* over a decade out of date. I gotta run across campus, but I'll see if I can dig up other stuff later._________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

I seriously doubt it is something over which society can hold sway in the prevention; society can discourage a behavior, and can punish it, but--since society is a nebulous collective and not a concrete thing like a queen's claws and teeth--it hasn't got any effective power to truly prevent a behavior.

(snip)

I'm afraid it does mean, however, that, today and for the foreseeable future, we will only be able to respond to the rapist with suitable punishments, and won't have much we can do to stop him from becoming a rapist if he hasn't the decency to stop himself.

The question of whether our current society has a way to end rape is not the same as the question of whether a society might exist in which rape was unknown in the first place. There's a distinction there. We might not have a way to get the idea of attack-via-sex back into Pandora's box, but that's a separate issue as to whether rape (or even "forced sex") is an "innate" part of the human experience.

---

The discussion about sex among other animals doesn't have a lot of relevance here, folks. Most here seem to be operating under the assumption that for some people (or all people?) sexual desire is an innate, instinctual drive akin to wanting to eat food, and that without clear rules regarding the affirmative non-consent on the part of the object of the desire (and I use the term "object" here deliberately) those people would simply start humping away at the object. You're talking about rape as if it's a problem of respecting or enforcing sexual boundaries. Mouse is right - we're not operating off of instinctual drives in how we mate, eat, sleep, or form relationships. Humans are incredibly, ridiculously, beyond-any-other-critter-we-know dependent on and informed by culture. Reproductive drive among cats does not explain Catholic priests abusing little boys.

I think this just reinforces my original point that much of the problem with rape is how we think of sex in the first place. They're different, definitely, but they're also not that different. There's something about how we think of sex that makes it the seemingly obvious weapon of choice against women, "feminized" men, etc.

abruptlydisc wrote:

If you're 20-something, female, and affluent enough to be online reading indie webcomics like Sinfest - you are one of the safest demographic categories in the entire US, especially if you're white. Black women are victims of all categories of violent crime at a far higher rate, yet it's fascinating that feminism on Sinfest, Tumblr, Twitter, etc is largely second-wave.

I think MRAs like to go after white women in discussions on feminism because they look like low-hanging fruit. They can get some measure of respect by concern-trolling for non-white women, and they really get a thrill out of treating white women like demanding, overly privileged, self-absorbed bitches, since that's how they usually think of women, anyway (unless they're going for one of those overseas brides who REALLY know how to treat a man, amirite?).

Of course, most of these knuckle-draggers who start criticizing white women for complaining that they have it rough are themselves white men, who love to forget about the fact that if there is any group unquestionably safer and more privileged than anyone else in North American society it is white men. So you're relying on violence committed against non-white men (which is also - let's be frank here - committed primarily by other men, white and non-white), in order to show that men in general are subjected to more violence than white women. Wow. A statistic worth about as much as an ant's fart.

You really want to talk about violent crime in general? Okay. Let's talk about why it's almost entirely perpetrated by men. Why are men so violent, attacking everyone? What's the problem with men as a class? Are you fundamentally broken, or do you just need a hug?

You really want to talk about violent crime in general? Okay. Let's talk about why it's almost entirely perpetrated by men. Why are men so violent, attacking everyone? What's the problem with men as a class? Are you fundamentally broken, or do you just need a hug?

Well, speaking for myself, the last time I committed a violent crime, it was because the girl behind me in first grade wouldn't stop pulling my hair. So I turned around and smacked her. Yeah, totally her fault. So the problem with men must be women. That's why every man I ever encounter always attacks every single person, animal, and street-sign he ever encounters. It's all women's fault. Totally. 'Cuz they're so mean and always teasing, and stuff. Yeah.
_________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

You really want to talk about violent crime in general? Okay. Let's talk about why it's almost entirely perpetrated by men. Why are men so violent, attacking everyone? What's the problem with men as a class? Are you fundamentally broken, or do you just need a hug?

I don't really consider myself an MRA (it took me like five minutes to realize what that was an acronym for), but, sure, let's take a stab at this.

Yes, clearly we're inferior, violent thugs because we happen to possess a Y chromosome. Alas, there is no hope for us.

Or it could be cultural conditioning, given that we live in a society that portrays men as needing to be strong and aggressive in order to be 'worthwhile' as a man. Manly men who solve their problems with bullets and shooting folks get a lot more movie fodder than men who solve things via, say, talking and deft diplomacy (which is a shame, because deft diplomacy can be AWESOME, as the Patrician shows us). Men 'have' to be the combatants, aggressive protectors and claimers of women, fighting for dominance to be seen as worthwhile.

Or it could be an inherent bias in the arrest system: I seem to recall a lot of states have laws on the books that say the man has to be arrested in the case of a domestic dispute, *even if the male is not the aggressor or initiator*. I suppose this would partially depend on if we're looking at conviction rates, or arrest rates.

And even then, looking at conviction rates isn't necessarily proof of no bias within the system. After all, we incarcerate minorities at a far higher rate than we do caucasians for simillar crimes, or laws have been written in ways that specifically impact minorities more negatively (like drug laws, especially crack vs. powdered cocaine, the race-baiting used to help make marijuana illegal, etc.) than the majority/plurality. Another example of sentencing disparities would be adult-on-minor sex cases, and how the sentencing (and, indeed, media reporting and general cultural attitudes!) are different between men vs. women offenders.

So we could have this discussion, if you want. But most of them are, unless you take the biological inferiority argument (and I don't think you *will*, mind!), going to swing back to how the patriarchy also hurts *men*.

And that will probably cause the people who point this out to be labeled 'Men's Rights activists'._________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

Felgraf, I don't think that being a violent thug travels on the Y chromosome.

I'm pretty sure that the ability to detect sarcasm, facetiousness, and sardonic attitudes don't travel on it, either, so I'm fully confident that you can get the gist of that portion of my post in the spirit in which it was intended.

Felgraf, I don't think that being a violent thug travels on the Y chromosome.

I'm pretty sure that the ability to detect sarcasm, facetiousness, and sardonic attitudes don't travel on it, either, so I'm fully confident that you can get the gist of that portion of my post in the spirit in which it was intended.

Eh, sorry, I'm tired and cranky today. Apologies._________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

Or it could be cultural conditioning, given that we live in a society that portrays men as needing to be strong and aggressive in order to be 'worthwhile' as a man. Manly men who solve their problems with bullets and shooting folks get a lot more movie fodder than men who solve things via, say, talking and deft diplomacy (which is a shame, because deft diplomacy can be AWESOME, as the Patrician shows us). Men 'have' to be the combatants, aggressive protectors and claimers of women, fighting for dominance to be seen as worthwhile.

Or it could be an inherent bias in the arrest system: I seem to recall a lot of states have laws on the books that say the man has to be arrested in the case of a domestic dispute, *even if the male is not the aggressor or initiator*. I suppose this would partially depend on if we're looking at conviction rates, or arrest rates.

And even then, looking at conviction rates isn't necessarily proof of no bias within the system. After all, we incarcerate minorities at a far higher rate than we do caucasians for simillar crimes, or laws have been written in ways that specifically impact minorities more negatively (like drug laws, especially crack vs. powdered cocaine, the race-baiting used to help make marijuana illegal, etc.) than the majority/plurality. Another example of sentencing disparities would be adult-on-minor sex cases, and how the sentencing (and, indeed, media reporting and general cultural attitudes!) are different between men vs. women offenders.

So we could have this discussion, if you want. But most of them are, unless you take the biological inferiority argument (and I don't think you *will*, mind!), going to swing back to how the patriarchy also hurts *men*.

And that will probably cause the people who point this out to be labeled 'Men's Rights activists'.

Sounds like some reasonable explanations to me. It's probably a big messy combination of factors.

And of course patriarchy hurts everyone. All the more reason to do away with it!_________________Deviant Art | Twitter | Tumblr

Felgraf, I don't think that being a violent thug travels on the Y chromosome.

I'm pretty sure that the ability to detect sarcasm, facetiousness, and sardonic attitudes don't travel on it, either, so I'm fully confident that you can get the gist of that portion of my post in the spirit in which it was intended.

Eh, sorry, I'm tired and cranky today. Apologies.

No worries. It wouldn't be the internet without misunderstandings of tone. Sometimes that's even part of the fun.

The discussion about sex among other animals doesn't have a lot of relevance here, folks. Most here seem to be operating under the assumption that for some people (or all people?) sexual desire is an innate, instinctual drive akin to wanting to eat food, and that without clear rules regarding the affirmative non-consent on the part of the object of the desire (and I use the term "object" here deliberately) those people would simply start humping away at the object. You're talking about rape as if it's a problem of respecting or enforcing sexual boundaries. Mouse is right - we're not operating off of instinctual drives in how we mate, eat, sleep, or form relationships. Humans are incredibly, ridiculously, beyond-any-other-critter-we-know dependent on and informed by culture. Reproductive drive among cats does not explain Catholic priests abusing little boys.

Excellent point. However, my original idea is that it explains why forced sex is unavoidable even in the best of societies. Let me explain: The fact that animals possess such a drive, in my opinion, declares the sad fact that somewhere, in a dark, fucked up room of our consciousness, we possess that same instinct. That fact makes me shiver.

No biggie, you'd say. After all, humans specialize in eliminating primitive urges in favour of rationalized morals and a broadened perception of cause/consequence, so in a society that's educated enough, such an urge would effectively disappear from everyone, right?

...I do want to believe that, but I can't. Needless to say, not everyone reacts to primitive instincts in the same way, and fucked up people will always be there.

So that's my postulate. As long as we don't get the urge to force sex upon others chemically removed from our brains, there will always be people that would succumb to such urge. I'm a fucking pessimist, I know._________________Welcome to Sinfest, the only place with a 46 pages long thread about sentient toasters

Felgraf, I don't think that being a violent thug travels on the Y chromosome.

I'm pretty sure that the ability to detect sarcasm, facetiousness, and sardonic attitudes don't travel on it, either, so I'm fully confident that you can get the gist of that portion of my post in the spirit in which it was intended.

Eh, sorry, I'm tired and cranky today. Apologies.

No worries. It wouldn't be the internet without misunderstandings of tone. Sometimes that's even part of the fun.

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.

The core of Poe's law is that a parody of something extreme by nature becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: sincere fundamentalist beliefs being mistaken for a parody of that belief.

_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

As long as we don't get the urge to force sex upon others chemically removed from our brains, there will always be people that would succumb to such urge.

this is the idea i was trying to attack by bringing in animal examples. if an animal, with no law enforcement or culturally-instilled behavior, can say 'no', and another animal accepts it - then there is no insurmountable urge to force sex on others. except in a few very damaged individuals. so yeah, one will always have those few very aberrant individuals (until we find ways to fix them) - but that doesn't mean it's not possible to have a culture where rape is not an issue.

in other words, it's sort of like whether or not you can build a culture that doesn't fixate on being destroyed by asteroids. until we can build an impenetrable force shield around the earth, there will always be some risk of being hit by killer asteroids. but compared to living on, say, the moon, the risk here on earth is so low that we, as a culture, don't spend a lot of time worrying about them. and i am wondering if there is a possible culture where similar destructive, but human-caused events (like rape, murder, assault) are similarly the actions of only an aberrant nature, and so rare they aren't really something anyone spends a lot of time thinking about.

and i am thinking along Tahpenes's lines - i'm not speculating on whether we can fix _our_ culture, only whether it is possible for such a culture to exist. i think it must be, because i reject the notion that humans have this overriding sex urge, just because sex is a natural function. we start learning to override natural urges when we are potty-trained; positing that sexual desire cannot be controlled strikes me as a cop-out (especially when it is clear that a lot of rape is _not_ about sex, so you can't blame it on being overwhelmed by the desire to mate.)_________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

i'm not speculating on whether we can fix _our_ culture, only whether it is possible for such a culture to exist. i think it must be, because i reject the notion that humans have this overriding sex urge, just because sex is a natural function. we start learning to override natural urges when we are potty-trained; positing that sexual desire cannot be controlled strikes me as a cop-out (especially when it is clear that a lot of rape is _not_ about sex, so you can't blame it on being overwhelmed by the desire to mate.)

So, look at what rape is based on: violence and control over another person; can we have a non-violent society where control over others is not sought? No. Not even among the beasts can this be found. Pecking orders are set and enforced via violence, and are all about control. This is essential to all wild animals, including humans.

In fact, it is arguable that violence is necessary for the survival of any wild animal, both among its own kind and in competition with other species. Territory and its attendant resources must be claimed and defended in order to provide for the individual or collective (most species of cats, for example, are solitary and claim territory as individual hunters, but most species of deer are herd animals and claim territory for the herd--in both cases, though, the territory is defended by those who claim it against incursions from others of their species and from others in the same ecological niche, so that the resources of the territory are available primarily to those who claim and defend it.) Dominance in a social order is set and held by violence, and all creatures, social or solitary, will seek to establish the greatest dominance they can achieve in order to secure the greatest benefits of dominance they can.

Are humans in any way exempt from these biological urges to promote their best chances for survival as individuals and as a group? Not at all. Not only do these urges arise from evolutionary structures within our own brains and bodies, but they are accentuated by the complexity of our social structures. We might not lock antlers and wrestle with one another, but we certainly do attempt to establish our own roles of dominance to the best of our abilities. After all, do we not compete aggressively for jobs so we can earn the means of survival? Do we not seek to regularly gain promotions and raises so we can increase our means? Don't we indulge in spending our means on blatant status symbols such as clothing, cars, and electronics to show others how successful and dominant we are?

And it's not just in the job place. We go to war, expressing the struggle and violence openly, in order to protect ourselves against perceived threats to our resources and security. Our criminals also openly express their violent natures to establish and demonstrate dominance.

Rape isn't an attempt to propagate ones genes; it's an attempt to use sex to establish dominance over another person, which is why the targets are typically those seen as weaker than the aggressor. And that urge for dominance lies deep within every living creature, ingrained there by millions of years of evolutionary success achieved by dominant predecessors.

That still does not make rape or violence acceptable, however. Remember: our typical response to these urges has been sublimated into the drive for financial and social success, leaving the violence only for the exceptional cases of war, crime, and punishment.

Is a society possible where there is no violence? I sincerely doubt it; violence is too essential to survival. But, a society is possible that relegates violence to its fringes, to only those scenarios where society is placed under undue stress and begins to break down into the wild state, again._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning